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North Korea Threatens Larger Nuclear Potential by the End of the Decade, Report Finds
North Korea could accelerate its production of fissionable materials to make eight to 13 nuclear weapons annually by the end of this decade, according to report released yesterday by a British think tank (see GSN, Jan. 21). The International Institute for Strategic Studies judged that North Korea might possess enough plutonium today for as many as seven nuclear weapons if Pyongyang has separated plutonium from spent fuel rods stored under international seal until late 2002. North Korea has said that it has processed all those fuel rods, but U.S. intelligence analysts and other observers have so far been unable to confirm that assertion, according to the Washington Post. Currently North Korea can produce enough plutonium for one nuclear weapon per year at its five-megawatt nuclear reactor, the IISS says, but that rate would increase if North Korea completes construction of a larger 50-megawatt reactor that has been in limbo since the now-defunct 1994 U.S.-North Korean nuclear freeze agreement. The larger reactor could produce 55 kilograms of plutonium annually, the report estimates, and an additional 75 kilograms of weapon-grade uranium could come each year from a uranium enrichment facility that U.S. intelligence services believe is under construction. In total, that material could produce eight to 13 nuclear weapons per year, the report says (Glenn Frankel, Washington Post, Jan. 22). “In a worst case, if the facilities are completed within the next one or two years, North Korea’s output of nuclear weapons could significantly increase around mid-decade to about eight to 13 weapons every year,” the report says. “A more cautious assessment — taking into consideration possible technical difficulties and delays, including interdiction efforts — is that these facilities will not be completed until the second half of the decade,” it adds (Ewen MacAskill, London Guardian, Jan. 22). “What we’re saying is, in the near-term immediate future, North Korea’s ability to increase its nuclear arsenal is very limited,” said Gary Samore, the report’s principal author and a former Clinton administration nonproliferation official. “But as you go beyond that window,” he told reporters yesterday, “it really begins to get into the range of dozens of nuclear weapons” (Frankel, Washington Post). One recent visitor to North Korea’s nuclear facilities said he thought it was unlikely that North Korea could quickly advance its production of nuclear materials. “Can they scale up rapidly? The answer to that is ‘no,’” said former Los Alamos National Laboratory Director Siegfried Hecker, who participated in an unofficial U.S. visit to North Korea two weeks ago. Hecker briefed staffers from the U.S. House of Representatives this morning. As for completing the 50-megawatt reactor any time soon, Hecker said the building “is in a bad state of repair” and that he saw corroded steel and a cracked cooling tower. Hecker also said he asked a North Korean official about the possibility of resuming the reactor’s construction. “He would only say that that is certainly under consideration,” Hecker said (Joe Fiorill, GSN, Jan. 22). The IISS report says that North Korea’s nuclear potential creates pressure to resolve the international nuclear crisis as quickly as possible. “There is still some time for diplomatic efforts to halt and eliminate North Korea’s nuclear arsenal while it remains limited to a handful of nuclear weapons,” IISS Director John Chipman said yesterday. “As time elapses, however, a diplomatic solution could become more difficult, as Pyongyang acquires additional strategic bargaining chips,” he added (Peter Graff, Reuters, Jan. 22). Diplomacy ContinuesMeanwhile in Washington, U.S., South Korean and Japanese officials began two days of talks yesterday to coordinate their efforts to resolve the North Korean crisis. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly hosted his counterparts South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-hyuk and Japanese director general of Asian and Oceanian Affairs Mitoji Yabunaka (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Jan. 22).
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